The use of OLED panels as sources of light is desirablexe2x80x94such as for area lighting in the workplace and for the home. However, the use of OLED panels for such light source uses has its own attendant set of problems for both design and manufacture. In particular, the OLED light source might be needed to provide lighting in unusual corners of a spacexe2x80x94so flexibility of the light source is possibly desirable. Additionally, exacting fault tolerances in an OLED light source for general lighting purposes does not need to be on the same par as perhaps an OLED light source for a computer displayxe2x80x94where human attention would be most acutely focused. Thus, there is an opportunity to design an OLED general light source with an eye towards ease of manufacture to reduce cost and improve reliability.
Thus, it is desirable to be able to design and manufacture such OLED light sources for general area lighting that take advantage of the specific general lighting usage to either maximize efficiency and reliability, flexibility or minimize cost of manufacture.
The present invention discloses a novel OLED light source and method for controlling said OLED light source panel are disclosed wherein said light source is constructed such that active areas are segmented and said segments are separately addressable. In one embodiment, the segments are a series of RGB lines or stripes and the control unit may separately drive each individual stripe or may drive all separate color lines or may drive separate lines within a given region on the panel. In another embodiment, the stripes of the panel are connected to control lines that are either current limited or have a fuse that serves to obviate a current runaway condition on the panel. In another embodiment, the output light chromaticity of the panel is controlled either by users or by light sensors. Specifically, the chromaticity could be controlled by individual control of the different color sub-units (e.g. segments or stripes) of the OLED light source.
In another embodiment the independent control of the different color sub-units is used to allow for better matching of the different color sub-units to achieve the desired overall chromaticity, in particular white. Thus, a non-optimum RGB set of segments, stripes or lines can still achieve an acceptable white color.
In yet another embodiment, the present invention could be employed with either individual OLED light source elements are all of the same color or whereby the individual elements have different colors.